Emma Seppälä on How You Discover Your Sovereign Self EP 445
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Coming up next on Passion Struck. Joan of Arc. We learned about her in school. I grew up in France, so she's sort of like a national hero, a saint. Really, in the last couple of years while I was reading this book, really understood, wait a second. So she was born, basically you could think of it, into slavery as an uneducated peasant. Here she was, and the French were losing, you know, many of the soldiers were also born into slavery. So talk about no hope.

And here she was, and she enlivened the spirit of an army of shoddy soldiers who had lost hope. And she got them to stop drinking, to stop whoring, to go to church.

to follow her into battle and to win. If you think about that, she had the sovereignty in her that kindled the sovereignty and a bunch of hooligans who weren't even expecting that they could win. Not just that.

She had to go to the king, who was such a weak, disempowered guy, the French king who was sort of hiding out. And she brought him to the church to crown him. She gave the king his sovereignty because he himself was not claiming it. It's such an extraordinary story when you think about it. And it goes to show how when one person has sovereignty kindled within them, they awaken the sovereignty in others.

even if they are the most lowest rank there could possibly be. - Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice

for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now,

Let's go out there and become passion struck. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode 445 of Passion Struck. Consistently ranked as the number one alternative health podcast. A heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you who return to the show every week, eager to listen, learn, and to discover new ways to live better, to be better, and to make a meaningful impact in the world. I have a special invitation for you.

I'm excited to introduce our new Passion Struck Quiz. It's a unique opportunity for you to discover where you stand on the Passion Struck Continuum. Are you an orchestrator who masterfully balances various aspects of life with passion and purpose? Or are you a vanquisher conquering challenges and turning obstacles into opportunities?

Take the quiz on passion struck.com and find out which one resonates more with your journey to living a passion struck life. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here. Or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member. And we so appreciate it when you do that. We have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans favorite episodes that we put into convenient playlists. They give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show. Either go to Spotify or passion struck.com/starterpacks to get started.

In case you missed it, last week we had three phenomenal interviews with Gabby Bernstein, Bill Ware, who's CNN's chief climate correspondent, and actor Jason O'Meara. Gabby shared the transformative wisdom from her latest book, Happy Days. We explored how to heal from the past,

embrace the power of self-love, step into a life of joy and peace, and unlock your happiest days yet. In my interview with Bill Ware, we delve deep into the heart of human connection, exploration, and the awe-inspiring wonders of our world. From unraveling the mysteries of nature to igniting the flames of curiosity within us all, Bill's insights will leave you inspired and eager to embark on your own journey of discovery. And lastly, in my interview with Irish actor Jason O'Meara, one of the stars of the hit series

man in the high castle we uncover the secrets behind jason's success and resilience his insights into the power of storytelling and his unwavering commitment to making a difference in the world and if you liked any of those episodes or today's we would so appreciate you giving it a five-star rating and review that goes such a long way in strengthening the passion star community where we can help more people to create an intentional life and i know we and our guests love to hear your feedback today i am absolutely thrilled to welcome my friend dr emma sapella

a trailblazing psychologist and best-selling author renowned for her expertise in happiness, emotional intelligence, and social connection. As a Yale lecturer and the faculty director of Yale's School of Management's Women's Leadership Program, Dr. Cepela has shaped the minds of executives with her groundbreaking teaching. Her work also extends to her role as the science director of Stanford University's Center for Compassion and

Altruism Research and Education, where she spearheads research on fostering compassion and altruism in society. In her latest book, Sovereign, Emma invites us into a radical new perspective, perfect for our times, which are marked by war, polarization, and existential questioning. This manifesto does more than just diagnose the ailments of modern society. It offers a

a cure. Through raw, humorous, and reflective insights, Emma guides us on how to dismantle self-destructive beliefs and habits, urging us to become psychologically sovereign across every facet of our lives, from our careers and families to our physical and emotional well-being. Armed with psychological data, the latest in neuroscience, and empirically validated methods, today's episode promises to take us on a journey of

personal transformation like no other. Join us as we delve deep with Emma Cepela on how to unbind ourselves and live life to its fullest potential. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin.

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Hi there, I'm Case Kenny. I'm the host of the New Mindset Who Dis podcast and I don't want to alarm you, but I've decided to be ridiculously optimistic and hopeful about life. That's kind of my thing actually, creating and sharing mindsets about how to live a life of pure optimism and joy. And that's what I do on the podcast. I share simple, no BS mindfulness techniques that make you realize that mindfulness isn't just about feelings and listening to yourself. It

It's about celebrating how much you bring to the table. On the podcast, I help you implement new mindsets to cut through anxiety, frustration, heartbreak, you name it, and come out the other side with renewed faith in yourself. My episodes are short and sweet, less than 20 minutes each, but will leave you feeling seen and with renewed hope and optimism for the days to come. So check it out Mondays and Thursdays on New Mindset, Who Dis?

I am so excited today to welcome Emma Seppala to PassionStruck. Welcome, Emma. Thank you so much, John. Emma, I thought we would start out by going over a little bit of your background. As you were growing up, you were drawn to literature and eventually Asian philosophy and culture. What was it in these fields, particularly Asian philosophy, that captivated you? And how did this interest eventually guide your journey into psychology and meditation?

Well, thanks for that question, John. So I grew up in Paris, France, which sounds so glamorous when you say it, but actually the philosophy on the streets there is pretty negatively biased. You always feel like everything is going to hell in a handbasket. People, at least when I was going there, growing up there would bond by through complaints and sort of negativity. And I thought that's how things were. And then I moved to the U.S.,

I saw, oh, okay, here people don't have any patience for negativity. Things are more geared toward the positive. And I thought that's really great. I loved it. And after a couple of years, I noticed that in the US, people are working themselves into the ground and that there's kind of a lot of pain surrounding that go, go, go sort of mentality. And then I moved to China after college for a couple of years. And I saw people who had absolutely nothing negative.

and were so grateful for what they had. And I saw an inner wealth there in the people and in China, in Tibet, in this sort of really difficult life situations that they were living in. And yet they were so sovereign. They were so resilient and happy and grateful for what they did have. And I thought, wow, you know, here we have people who are wealthy and have everything but are grateful for nothing and miserable.

And there I saw people who had nothing and were grateful for everything and were immensely happy, but also resilient, energized. And I realized that the happiness, the resilience, the success we're seeking is really has much more to do with the mind than with external circumstances. And that's what got me really interested. And how can we cultivate a sovereign mindset to navigate life in a way that's

not just more resilient, but also more aligned with who we really are, what we really want to achieve and with greater happiness, fulfillment. So that's what really got me on this trajectory. And I went into psychology to study this more and then to research ways in which we can cultivate a more sovereign, more resilient mind, despite trauma, despite challenges, despite stress, despite life.

That's interesting. I've been to China several times myself. When you were there, were you in one of the bigger cities or were you in a more rural area? Both. I was both in Shanghai and then I spent time in a more rural area as well. And this was 99 to 2001.

I was there a little bit after you and I was primarily in the big cities. I had been to Hong Kong many times earlier than that, but I didn't really consider Hong Kong at that time to be the same as China, but mainly Beijing and Shanghai, a couple of the other cities. But I found the population to be much more middle class

at least when I went there in the later 2000s, than anything I expected. And it's probably because I didn't get a chance to journey out as much into some of the areas outside of the big cities. But I was just shocked at some of the stores they had, the types of restaurants, how well people were dressed. It was not what I expected going in. Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely.

So your new book, Sovereign, which I'm going to hold up right here. Congratulations. Thank you, Tom. Offers a roadmap really to reclaiming your full psychological sovereignty in a time of global challenges. You kind of gave a little bit of a backstory, but what inspired you to write this book? Why now? And how does it build on your previous work on happiness and emotional intelligence?

Thank you. I think we live in a time, an unprecedented time of disruption, of global chaos, but also of a time where we are taking in over 60,000 gigabytes of information every day through our media.

And a time when there is so much coming at us that it's easy to sometimes completely get out of touch with your own self, your own higher purpose, your passion. John, as you write about in your book, you know, the potential that you are and be just

overcome with distraction, with stress, with despair. And when I looked at the science, there are ways that we can protect our minds and keep it in a place that is at its greatest sort of potential. My first book, The Happiness Track,

looked at the science of happiness and questioned the way that we're working. Because when you look at the science, if you want to do things and do things successfully over the long run without burning out, if you actually take care of your wellbeing, your psychological wellbeing, and I show the steps for how to do that in that book, then you're actually going to be more creative, make better decisions, have better emotional intelligence and

and so forth, all the things that we need to be successful. And Sovereign builds on that more and further in the sense that, and I realize this personally myself, because I was following all of the steps that I

delineated in my first book, but I still was having challenges with my health and different ways I was having challenges. And I realized that there's another level, which is this sort of idea of sovereignty, which is really re looking at our life with greater awareness as to what we let into our minds, how we condition our minds and how we

We interact with the outside world. Let me give you just an example to make things really concrete. So I teach executives. That's what I do at the Yale School of Management. And I speak to so many audiences. And whenever I ask the question, are you self-critical? 95% of the room raises their hand. And if you look at self-criticism from a psychological perspective, it's a form of self-loathing.

So 90 to 95% of people are walking around with self-loathing. And so sometimes people will think, well, self-criticism is good. It leads to self-improvement. I'm not talking about self-awareness, right? Self-awareness is okay. Like I'm not that great at math that, and I need help with that. Okay. But if you are self-critical, it's whenever you make a mistake or you fail that you beat yourself up. So that voice in your mind,

That tells you you're such an idiot. You're this, you're that. These are the words that people say to themselves when they mess up on something. And I know that because I've asked people so many times that when you look at the research on self-criticism, it leads to higher anxiety, depression, fear of failure, less likelihood to try again. It's really debilitating. And it's something we do to our own selves because we don't have awareness. So I call self-criticism like a

A toxic viral program because it runs in families, it runs in societies, it's considered normal. And yet, when you look at the research like I said it's actually like you kicked yourself on the way to the battlefield of your life right. So, how do we want to show up in our life.

wounded because we kicked our way there or you know in brand spanking new armor because you actually had a very life supportive relationship with yourself so that's just one example of how without even realizing it there are ways in which we beliefs that we hold and or behaviors that we do that actually stop our own selves from attaining our fullest potential does that make sense john

You know, it makes sense. And we're going to explore that a lot more. I thought for the benefit of the audience, I'd read to them your definition of sovereignty, because I loved how you started the first chapter out. You write, sovereignty is eternal freedom and a relationship with yourself so profoundly life-supportive

and energizing that you access your fullest potential, the fullest potential you were born for. Trust me, you felt it. You felt the sovereignty fire kindled in the pit of your stomach at different times in your life. It's that inner flame that lifted you up from the rock bottom and kept you walking through the darkest of nights. It's the roar of defiance that helped you back to your feet every time you were knocked down. The declaration of your fight and right to live as you are no matter what.

And I love that because I think we are at a time where this feeling of unmattering is spreading like wildfire. People are just not feeling significance in who they are, what they were put on earth to do and how they hold meaning not only to others, but to their self. So when you were talking about self-loathing, I think that plays hand in hand with this unmattering that so many people feel. And so I,

What you're talking about with sovereignty is absolutely what I try to bring up when I'm discussing PassionStruck because it is really trying to live to your fullest potential. So how, if a person is listening to this, if they're one of these people who's stuck, they're self-loathing, how do they reclaim or start to reclaim, as you put it, the treasure trove of possibility that exists within all of us if we allow it?

I mean, the reason I started with the self-loathing piece is because it's sort of fundamental to have a life supportive relationship with yourself. And sometimes that just takes retraining. But the first part, the first puzzle of sovereignty is awareness. When we talk about toxic workplaces and we talk about toxic relationships with other people, but most people don't realize they're in a toxic relationship with their own self. And that doesn't make any sense, right? It just doesn't make any sense. And so I think it's important to have a life supportive relationship with yourself.

And when you build the foundation for that, which really starts by attending to yourself with the same kindness and consideration and support that you would attend to your best friend, that you would attend to your child.

And you know, that can sound soft and fuzzy, but the truth is that research shows that when you have that kind of relationship with yourself, you have better mental health, you have better psychological wellbeing, you have better sleep, you have better relationships with others, because get this, we all want good relationships with others. Yet when we're highly self-critical, we also tend to be most critical of the people that we love the most and want to hurt the least.

Because however you relate to yourself, you will probably also relate to those closest to you. And research shows that when you have a better relationship with yourself, you actually have better relationships with other people. And this could be your colleagues, this could be your children, this could be your spouse. So that's really the foundation. And the way I break it down is attending to your needs. One of the questions that when we're self-critical, we often ask is,

am I good enough? And I am not good enough. 80 is a statement that 80% of millennials adopt with regards to almost every facet of their life. Can you imagine? And that's what's, that's the question that self-criticism asks. That's why people talk about imposter syndrome and so forth. But the complete opposite is the question that you ask yourself when you have more of that sort of sovereign relationship with yourself, which is,

what's good for me? It's a completely different experience of what is it that you need at this moment and just taking care of basic needs. And that's really a foundational piece for the rest of the book because the rest of the book looks into how do we have sovereign emotions, sovereign relationships? How do we have

a sovereign relationship with our body, with our mind. And for example, right now, when I think about the mind, right, we are constantly bombarded with information all day long, and we're constantly looking at our devices and taking in so much. It's almost overwhelming when you think about it. And then we're meant to come up with our own ideas and understand how we personally feel and think about things. And yet we've been so barraged with information that it's almost hard to

to know what is yours and what isn't. And I like to give this example of, I met with a colonel in the army whose job it was to bring craft messages for the Taliban to get them to think a certain way. And I was talking to this person and said, wow, like if your job was to craft these sort of manipulative messages, how do you approach the messages that are coming your way? And we get messages from, you know, from our news, from our social media, from everywhere. And he says, well,

I always look for the intent behind the message. And I said, okay, so how do you do that? And he said, this is how I teach my kid. If we're walking through a supermarket and my kid wants this unhealthy cereal, I'll tell them, oh, why do you want that cereal? And then the child would be like, oh, cause that it's so fun. Look, there's this little cartoon characters. And then,

He said, okay, that's nice. Why do you think there are these cartoon characters? Oh, because it's just so nice to look at and the colors and the games on the back. Oh, and why do you think that they put those? And then the child's like, oh, because it just makes me happy to look at them. And so why do you think they did this so that it would make you happy to look at them? And the child would be like, oh, so it would appeal to kids, you know, so on and so forth, sort of questioning that.

the messaging that's coming the child's way. So, and our mind is, it's like, we are what we eat is true of our mind. And I think most of us don't realize that whatever we're putting in our mind is also going to impact how we perceive the world. I have a colleague who couldn't, he can't, he has insomnia problems. And I told him, well, what's your bedtime routine? And he said, I look at the 11 PM news and we know, you know, from neuroscience that whatever you look at last before bed

is going to impact your mind. It's what you're going to remember most of the whole day. And if you think about going to sleep with the news and with that sort of fight or flight that it can kick in with the sad and the scary. So, you know, one way to regain sovereignty of our mind is to really look at what is it that I'm constantly putting into my mind and

Is it serving me? And then also thinking about at least spending time to clear your mind, not that you shouldn't watch the news and so forth. Of course, you should stay informed. But this idea of

Taking time out to clear our minds and through things like meditation or unplugging or being outside away from our devices, but also to take in quality input, like your podcast, for example, right? Input that is inspiring or that is nourishing to our minds. That's just one example of how we can gain a more sovereign mindset.

And there's one more piece I would add to this is that, you know, a lot of people are walking around with certain levels of trauma, you know, either from their past or from, you know, car accidents. There's so many different things that can hold us back in life and that we don't feel like we have our sovereignty because, oh, I have this anxiety because of this trauma I had or this or that, the other. And so addressing trauma is really, really critical. And I'm happy to talk about that in our research with veterans if that's of interest.

Yeah. So one of the, I was going to cover this a little bit later on, but we can dive into it now. I understand you've done a bunch of research on the effects of breathing exercises for PTSD and other things, studying veterans and providing groundbreaking solutions. How did you get into that? And what are some of the results that you found?

Thanks for asking, John. One of my favorite research studies that we've run. When I was in graduate school, the news was coming out about veteran suicides, which is still really, really high to this day. And I was researching the benefits of meditation type of practices on well-being at the time.

And I thought, I wonder if I can help in some way with some of our studies. Now I was in New York city during nine 11 and I had massive amounts of anxiety after nine 11, every morning at eight 30 AM, my body was shaking almost when I was preparing to go outside. And I tried so many things to help myself after that, but nothing really worked until I walked into a breathing class called

Sky is called art of living and they teach a breathing practice called sky breath meditation. And I did that breathing exercise. And after that, that helped me regain sovereignty over my body, over my mind.

And then fast forward 10 years later, I was doing a postdoc at the University of Wisconsin. And I was thinking, I really want to help the veteran population they've done so much for us. And they're suffering because some of them were doing pharmaceutical treatments or therapeutic treatments, but many of them we know from the data fell through the cracks and or didn't continue those treatments because they didn't like them.

And I was thinking, what can we do? So we decided to run a study using this breathing protocol that I had experienced as being so helpful for trauma. And we found that after one week, the active group had gone through the program, showed a normalized levels of anxiety, and that was maintained one month and one year later, compared to the control group that had not.

the program. And we also measured them physiologically because of course people might just tell you, I feel better, but we want to see, we actually see that the physiological level. And what we saw was that the more they reported their anxiety improving, the less they startled when placed in a situation in the lab, which evokes startle, like loud sounds, flashing lights and so forth. And then we recently, the study was replicated at the Palo Alto VA with men and women and

and found that it is at least as good as the gold standard therapeutic treatment that's out there. And that it's also stronger for cultivating emotion regulation at the level of the physiology of the brain.

That was really one of the most sort of touching studies I've ever run. I remember one of the participants after just saying, thank you for giving me my life back. And, you know, many of them were hunkered up in their basement, drinking and smoking weed and self-medicating, and they were able to move on with their lives after that. In fact, there was a documentary film that was made about it called Free the Mind.

Well, that is some amazing work that you did and such a profound impact that it's having. And to have an efficacy that was similar, if not better, than standard, I guess what you're talking about is talk therapy, behavior therapy, cognitive therapy.

Yeah, cognitive processing therapy. And I, you know, if this program is offered for veterans and military families at no cost through a nonprofit called Project Welcome Home Troops, it's really wonderful. Hi there. I'm Case Kenny. I'm the host of the New Mindset Who Dis podcast. And I don't want to alarm you, but I've decided to be ridiculously optimistic and hopeful about life.

That's kind of my thing, actually, creating and sharing mindsets about how to live a life of pure optimism and joy. And that's what I do on the podcast. I share simple, no BS mindfulness techniques that make you realize that mindfulness isn't just about feelings and listening to yourself.

It's about celebrating how much you bring to the table. On the podcast, I help you implement new mindsets to cut through anxiety, frustration, heartbreak, you name it, and come out the other side with renewed faith in yourself. My episodes are short and sweet, less than 20 minutes each, but will leave you feeling seen and with renewed hope and optimism for the days to come. So check it out Mondays and Thursdays on New Mindset Who Dis?

So you really dive into this sky breath meditation in chapter four, which is on the sovereign mind. And maybe we'll jump there because you start this chapter out by discussing the story of a person named Star who had significant limiting beliefs that were forming an imprint on their life. How can we, using the story of Star, come to understand this?

how we too have such imprints and how do we achieve mental sovereignty over them by embracing our full potential.

Yeah. So the story of Star, I met her, she was in one of our executive programs. I mean, she was an African-American lawyer and working for the government. She was telling me she was becoming aware of an imprint. And when imprint is sort of a belief that's in your mind and that can either be negative or positive or neutral. But in her case, she was noticing that she had this fear that was preventing her from reaching for more in her professional life that she knew she was capable of and that she wanted.

And she said, as an African-American woman, I have this fear that I shouldn't live too large, basically just try to do more than I should. Or she had this fear that was dominating her mind, but she was becoming very aware of it. And she was becoming aware that she no longer wanted that to control her.

And she decided that she was going to stare that imprint in the face and understand that it wasn't true and that it wasn't hers to own. And she went on to apply for some jobs and got an amazing job at a Fortune 500 company and is doing amazing. And what her story reveals to us is we all have imprints, beliefs. They might be cultural beliefs. They might be societal beliefs or something we learned in our family or from our background that are holding us back.

And holding us small, smaller than we need to be, than we should be, than we are. And we all have those and staring them at them and being aware of them is what helps us to then no longer be slave to them. So trauma, for example, could be an imprint that's really strong that you can work through, right? With something like the sky breath meditation. But meditation itself is also a way of becoming aware of imprints as is relationships, right?

So whenever you're in a relationship, whether it's professional or with someone else, when you are triggered, then sometimes that is a sign of an imprint that's there. For example, if you're someone who at some point in life felt disrespected, maybe as a child, and then you're in relationships with others and your big trigger is when you feel disrespected.

that's a sign of just that imprint, you know, that imprint that I'm not, people don't respect me. I'm not good enough or whatever it is. Right. And being able to, so relationships are a great way. You know, people often ask, how do I, how can I know what my imprints are? Well, look to your triggers, look to your buttons, look at the buttons that people push, you know, that can be helpful. One of the parts of the book that I really liked was how you brought up historical context. And I've been recently watching that

miniseries, Masters of the Sky, which profiles the B-17 pilots from the US who kept flying these missions against incredible odds that they were going to get shot down. In the book, you bring up Joan of Arc as an example of a historical person who showed sovereignty. What can we learn from both of these situations, from these historical figures who showed indomitable spirits despite their circumstances?

Thanks for bringing up Joan of Arc. We learned about her in school. I grew up in France, so she's sort of like a national hero, a saint and all that. And I really, in the last couple of years while I was reading this book, really understood, wait a second. So she was born, the English owned France at the time. So she was born, basically you could think of it into slavery, right? To the English as an uneducated peasant, couldn't write or write, 17 years old,

a woman. Can you get any lower rank than that? You're basically the lowest rank in society, plus you're enslaved to another country. So all of these things. And here she was, and the French were losing, you know, they were not, many of the soldiers were also born into slavery. So talk about no hope. And here she was, and she went, and she enlivened the spirit of an army of shoddy

soldiers who had lost hope and she got them to stop drinking, to stop whoring, to go to church,

To follow her into battle and to win. If you think about that, she had the sovereignty in her that kindled the sovereignty and a bunch of hooligans who weren't even expecting that they could win. Not just that, she had to go to the king who was such a weak, disempowered guy, the French king who was sort of hiding out

And she brought him to the church to crown him. She crowned him. She gave the king his sovereignty because he himself was not claiming it. So I just think this is, it's such an extraordinary story when you think about it. And it goes to show how when one person has sovereignty kindled within them, they awaken the sovereignty in others.

even if they are the most lowest rank there could possibly be. And I spoke to my husband about this too. He was in the Marine Corps and he said it was often not the strongest or the youngest or the biggest who were the ones who stayed standing in the very difficult exercises where, you know, sometimes after hours and hours of climbing up the hill with giant packs, people are falling down left and right and not in battle. I'm just talking about exhaustion, dehydration, whatever. And he's, and, or in these really difficult exercises, which I know that you've been through as well, the military, right?

He said it's the person has the most sovereignty within them and can withstand. And it's not just grit. You know, sometimes people are like, oh, it's just grit. It's not just grit because you can be very gritty and have a very self-destructive relationship with yourself at the same time. In fact,

As someone who's taught at Yale and Stanford for the last 20 years now, I can tell you, I know a lot of really gritty people there who are also very self-destructive. They do not have a life supportive relationship with themselves and they burn themselves into the ground as a consequence. So sovereignty is really that marriage of both that, like that passion that you're talking about. I love the definition you give and you're about passion struck of there's both the grit and then there's the intent, all that together intentionality.

And then that life supportive relationship with oneself. Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up. I had a interesting discussion with Angela Duckworth on this when I finally got her on the podcast. For those who've read her book, she starts it out by talking about West Point cadets and that it was passion, perseverance, which she calls grit, and their physical abilities, what got them through. And I challenged her on it because having gone to the Naval Academy, I thought that those things were absolutely essential.

And I do agree that they took more weight than having talent and perhaps intelligence. But to your point, I thought that the whole missing ingredient was being intentional. It's that self-control. It's noticing when you're on the wrong path, when you're not being sovereign, when you're

self-loathing or self-criticizing or giving in to your own weaknesses and knowing that you need to catch yourself and get back on the right path. And that's where I think intention plays a huge role. So I appreciate you bringing that up. And as you were talking about historical figures, it also made me, for whatever reason, think of Mandela and how

He was really the lowest of lows sitting in a prison cell. Yet when he left and finally got freed, he thought, I can take this anger and angst with me, or I can let it go and be the vessel, the sovereign force that is for good and change. And I think we all have that choice to make. And his story and Joan of Arc's illustrates that

Even under the worst of circumstances, we still have choices that we can make to choose to be the person we want to be.

And just one of the people I talk about in my introduction is this woman Nazreen. She was a child laborer, a child slave in Nepal, Kathmandu. And she has, by certain circumstances, she was able to get herself out of there and start her own business there and start to hire women there and pay them fairly and so forth. But talk about that sovereignty of being born into this

into a sort of a slave-like situation, undocumented, in a village where they're undocumented, no birth certificate, no identity card, nothing, and then working as child laborers and turning that around. These stories are, and there's another one, John, that I talk about in my introduction too, which is a

A female veteran that I met, having interviewed a lot of veterans, combat veterans, I've heard a lot of really horrendous stories. But when I heard hers, it was probably the worst I'd heard. You know, she was in combat during the day in Iraq. And during the night, her own commander was prostituting her and threatening her that if she ever said anything, she wouldn't go home alive to see her baby. And she was only 24 years old.

And when I met her, she told me her story. I couldn't help but have tears running down my face because it's such a horrific experience for over a year that she had there. But she had this sovereignty about her, John. She was just like, I just want to be a good wife. I want to be a good mother. And I just want to be a good person. And not an ounce of self-pity.

a victim, nothing about her. And she did, you know, she went through our sky or the sky breath meditation through our study. And she definitely had the trauma to, to work through. And she said, you know, if I hadn't done this, I would probably be an alcoholic on the street.

But once she had been able to take care of her trauma, she has gone on to be a really high level leader in the, one of the biggest tech firms in the UI and the U S and she has, she's an incredible mother to her son who's on the autism. So that requires a lot of work and she's there right there with him and doing amazing work with that sovereignty that I saw in her was so inspiring. Yeah. Because what, I mean, she could have been feeling was shame, rejection,

Self-loathing, as you were talking about, feeling inauthentic because of what happened to her, but she was able to turn the situation around, which is really a great role model for people who are listening to think about a person in that situation, choosing to live their life the way that they want to and not being conditioned by what they went through.

Absolutely. I mean, she's certainly worked on herself. You know, I think these things do take, especially when there's trauma, there is healing that takes place, but she'd done it from a place of sovereignty and she is the leader of her life. She has not let that take over her, her life trajectory. What reminds me of the quote that you have in the book by Maya Angelou. I learned a long time ago that the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side. Drawing from her wisdom and

How does self-compassion empower us in life's challenges like the one you were just discussing? And why is it crucial to be on our own side in the battlefield that we have in life? Yeah, like we were talking about earlier, it doesn't make sense not to be. And that's why I love that quote by Maya Angelou. And there's another one that I really love by Audre Lorde, who's a self-described gay Black woman in a straight white man's world. You know, she's an activist and author, writer, poet. And she says, you know, self-compassion

Care is not self-indulgence. It's an act of political warfare. That is so powerful because I think a lot of people can think, oh, well, that's just being soft on yourself. Why would you do that? No, just like Maya Angelou says, it's the only thing that makes sense. It makes sense to be on your own side, like Audre Lorde said, because so you can show up on the battlefield and be at your fullest, truest potential because you've cared for yourself on the way there and you can show up

powerful and strong. And again, so that to me is one of those societal beliefs that we should question. Why should we have this self-loathing and this self-criticism? It's not doing us any favors at all. On the contrary. So sovereignty is having that life supportive relationship with yourself as the very base of it. That's the base of sovereignty. And after that, you work on the sovereign mind, sovereign relationships, all the other things.

Yeah, one of my favorite parts of the book was where you go through the beliefs that bind us and then you go through the sovereign emotions. So as I was reading the beliefs that bind us, which are leave your emotion at the door, suppress your emotion, drown your emotion. I remember when I was in the military and had experienced PTSD, this was exactly what we were kind of told. You need to be strong, suppress emotions.

any of these feelings that you're having or, and all that does is lead to you drowning it with some type of addiction, whether that's being addicted to work, addicted to sex, addicted to drugs, addicted to alcohol. And none of that helps you get to the bottom of the issues that you're facing. You're just prolonging the misery and in many cases making it so much worse. So

You then go into the sovereign emotions and I'll let you maybe go through a couple, but I'll start with my favorite one was the first one. Feel that damn emotion. Yeah. Thank you for John, for bringing this up. You know, what's so fascinating to me is just no matter how educated someone is, how many MDs, PhDs, how, you know, how many black belts they have or dishes they know how to cook.

Chances are people have as much formal education about what to do with their negative emotions as a five-year-old, which is none. We get no training. It's at the core of our lives. We feel emotions every minute of the day, even if we can think we don't. Hopefully we're feeling enthusiastic about life and energized, but we could be feeling upset or stressed or anxious just going through our inbox. You know, five different emails can evoke different emotions that are stressful and so forth. So as you were saying, research shows that when we suppress our emotions, it actually makes them stronger. And

And they're more likely to explode in an inappropriate way or implode with stomach aches or migraines. And like you said, we can fall for addiction because we don't know what to do. And we, especially in the US, I think there's a sense of the pursuit of happiness is in the constitution. There's a sense that we don't want to feel bad ever. And if we feel bad, there's definitely something wrong with us. And yet feeling the negative emotions is just, it's complete part of life. And it's in other cultures, like in China or India, that's an understanding that

When you feel the negative emotions, you actually, they also have a benefit. And if we think about hard times in our life, it's the really difficult times. It's the layoffs, the divorces, the healthcare or finance issues that also led to a lot of growth for us. A lot of understanding, became more compassionate, became kinder. We had more perspective or became more grateful when things turned around, right? So here in the US, there's this sense of, and I think in many places that we just don't want to feel bad.

And so what do we do? We'd suppress because that's the only thing that we've learned, most of us. But actually, if you think of emotion, it's energy in motion. And if you think about how long a child is angry for, it's two minutes, three minutes, and they're done. And they're moving on. They're best friends with the person they just were so mad at, right? So you can think of emotion as energy in motion. It's energy moving through your system. And if you let it move through your system, you could become free of it, just like a child is.

But an adult, when they're angry, they can suppress it and they can hold it in and they can last a lifetime. They can pass it on. And so for sure in the military, that's what you learned. And but not just in the military, I would say much of society and most of the audiences I speak to, this is what they say. Suppression is something that with the basic thing that they've learned. And I would think this is maybe even more particularly true for men, but it's true for men and women.

And so when you actually allow yourself to feel the emotion, even when it's really uncomfortable and all you want to do is go have some alcohol or distract yourself with entertainment or go shop or work or whatever it is, right? Feeling the emotion allows it to move through your system, just like a kid having a tantrum on the floor. I mean, not that you should have a tantrum in the supermarket when they don't have your favorite brand of whatever, right? But it's allowing yourself to feel.

actually allows the emotion to move through you. And you can do things to help you with that too, whether it's breathing exercises, like the ones I was talking about, or walking outside in nature, changing your perspective. There are a lot of different things you can move the body, but the idea is to remain aware. And when you're aware of the pain, even though it's excruciating and sometimes feels awful, that is what allows it to move. Does that make sense?

No, it makes sense completely. I think it's an important thing. And I wanted to go back for a second to the students that you talked about at Yale and similar institutions, because this got me thinking yesterday I was requested by a high school student to be on his YouTube channel.

And at first I thought, oh, I don't want to do this. But he had read the book. It had really my book and it had really resonated with him. So I thought I didn't think that at first that this was going to be a book that high school students would want to read. But he actually found a lot of the advice to relate to him. And it started me thinking of my own kids. And we often think of these competitive environments at Yale, Princeton, whatever college you're trying to get into. And it's not just here. It's

In the UK, it's in India. I'm sure it was in France the same way.

And it got me thinking about how much these high school students are putting this immense pressure on themselves. It's something I remember interviewing Susan Cain. It was the first time I heard this phrase, effortless perfection, which she found talking to students at Princeton. But I think that's how a lot of high school kids are feeling too. And they pray at all this self-stress fatigue. And what I was telling this young man yesterday as he was asking me for my advice was,

As I said, when you're so concentrating on all these external things that you think are going to bring you admiration and approval, you're just eroding your own internal pride and happiness that you absolutely seek, plus the need for love and belonging. And this is something that you cover in the book. How do these things conflict with our deeper need for love and belonging? And what are the implications for our mental and physical health?

Thanks for saying that. I mean, after food and shelter, our greatest need is to trust and to feel safe, to feel safe in our environment, but then it's for positive social connection. Everybody wants to be heard, seen, valued, and appreciated from childhood through old age. That's one of our basic needs, that positive connection with other people. It was really interesting because like you said, on these high-level college campuses,

I saw so many very talented, hardworking students and some of my colleagues asked them, what's the emotion that you feel most of the time? You would think it would be elated and happy and inspired, but what they said was tired and stressed is what they feel the most. Okay. So then, then my colleagues asked, well, what emotion do you most want to feel? You could think, what, what could that be? Again, inspired, successful. It was loved. They most want to feel loved.

And that really hit home the point for me that all of these people that I had seen striving, whether it's in Silicon Valley, serial entrepreneurs at Yale, at Stanford, the campuses where I've been working and studying for years, is that so many people who are tireless sort of overachievers,

are seeking love through all of their tireless working. And yet no amount of approval or respect or love from others can make up for a lack of love from yourself. No one can repair that hole in your heart, but you.

And I think that's something that few people understand. And so they keep going and they keep going until they burn out and they don't understand why they're not happy. But it's really interesting because people pass this on, right? Pass this on to your kids or the professors pass it on to the students. And when I was at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for my postdoc, I thought, well, it felt like a healthier campus. It was less of an elite campus, but the students had less of a self-identification with I am what I do and I am healthy.

And I need to just be successful because especially I think in the Midwest, there's more of an understanding that's more, the self is identified more with the community too, rather than just focused on oneself and one's own success. But yeah, so that's really interesting. And that wasn't the observation that I made there. So I wanted to make sure we hit on chapter five of your book where you discuss relationships and you go into the

Six keys of positive relational energy, including showing care, support, forgiveness, inspiration, meaningfulness, et cetera. But what I wanted you to go into, which I really liked, were the three types of energizers, pressures, sacrificers, and stars. Yep.

So some of my colleagues were looking at organizations to see in terms of these large networks of people, they made this fascinating discovery, which was that there are these subgroups of people in these organizations that were just super productive. Like something was going on there that was very unusual. And what they found each time was that at the center of that group was one person and that person was life-giving to everyone else. What was going on here?

And I remember my colleague, Kim Cameron saying, oh, this, I know it's embarrassing as a scientist to use this word, but the person at the center of that group is we can only describe as being a positive energizer. They have positive relational energy. What?

What is this? So I think we all know people in our lives or in our communities where when we spend time with them, we feel more tired after we spent time with them or a little more depleted in their presence. And I think that term quote unquote energy vampire, it's been around for 20 years and sure we've known about that, but what Kim and his colleagues discovered was that there's the opposite is also true. These certain individuals are energy enhancers, they're life giving. What is it about these people? And then they create this massive amount of productivity around them and they're

Leaders who lead in this way have healthier organizations, happier organizations, more productive organizations, more engaged organizations, and so forth and so on. And people can be trained in this. And again, relationships, just like emotions, is an area of our life where we've never received any formal training. But there are three different types of positive energizers. And it's really important not to fall for some of the traps of the first two because they won't lead to the results that

we want. So the first type of a positive energizer is what I call a crusher, which is they may do work that's really exceptional. They're inspiring to people. They have, you know, people, people follow them, respect them, admire them for their work. And I'll give an example of a scientist who was very much revered for his work and well-known and, you know, on the cover of time and all this all over the world, people recognize the scientist. And yet when you spend time in his lab,

It was a very unhappy backstabbing place. And what was going on here? And what turns out is that crushers, they have this very inspiring way about them and they may be doing great work, but they are not attending to the people that work for them. So they don't have a life supportive relationship with some people. And as a consequence, they don't reach the potential. What heights could this person, the scientist have reached if he also had a life supportive relationship with his own people?

So that's crushers and the sacrificers are a little different. They also do wonderful work and create a lot of inspiration around them. And they don't take credit for others' work. They are supportive for the people around them, but they themselves give too much of themselves and don't take care of themselves in the process. And so they burn out. So you see, in the case of the crusher,

they're leaking energy because they're not taking care. They're only having that life supportive relationship with certain people, not others. And in the case of sacrificers, they have a life supportive relationship with others, but not with themselves. See that those crushers and sacrifices. And then there's what I call stars, which are those people who are able to have this life supportive relationship with others while also having a life supportive relationship with themselves. They're sovereign. Now, what do I mean by sort of life giving sacrifice?

energy, is that they act with basic human values, which is compassion when people are suffering, kindness, empathy, humility, which you have so much of, John, and all of these, actually, you have all of these traits, and forgiveness,

basic human values that create feelings of trust and safety around them. They also are, have a life supportive relationship with themselves in that they listen to their own needs and are respectful of the needs of their body, of their needs, of their mind, of their needs, of their wellbeing. And that balance creates sort of unlimited, unbounded potential.

Well, thank you for bringing those three up because I really enjoyed your explanation of the three. I think we can all identify with each one of them. And so I thought it was important for the audience to hear. You start out in your chapter one invitation talking about the sovereign song of life. And it's something that kind of resonates throughout the whole book. And when I initially read it last year, Seth Godin put out a great book called The Song of Significance. And it kind of reminded me of that.

reminded me of that, but it's really a metaphor, the sovereign song of life for singing one's own song, which is an act of sovereignty. So for those who have listened to the episode today, can you elaborate on how the listeners can discover and express their own unique song? Yeah. So in the introduction, I share a quote by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. I'm going to paraphrase that we're all on a stage. We've got our costume on in our mic and

But we haven't sung into the mic yet. And we're just walking around the stage restless. And he said, you will be restless until the day that you sing your song. And I thought this was such a beautiful metaphor because each and every one of us has had such a unique life trajectory, has such a unique personality, has such a unique way of seeing, understanding the world.

that we bring to it a very unique song, whatever that is, whether it's the way we like to show up, whether it's something that we like to create, whether it's the way that we work, whether it's the way that we relate to other people, whatever it is, every one of us has unique

and skills and talents that are a gift to the people around us, whether we know it or not. Because I actually do research at Yale where we go into this and I'll help people find out what it is that is their song. And many of them don't even realize it because they think, oh, isn't that normal? Isn't that just normal? What I do? No, it's not normal. Or other people wouldn't notice about it about you and be so touched by it. So all of us have this and it has a lot to do with reality.

reclaiming your sovereignty, which is why I choose the word reclaim in the subtitle of my book, because it's something we were born with. And when we regain a sovereign relationship with ourself, which we've talked about a lot now, and also with our emotions, when we reclaim sovereignty over our mind and choosing to take time to clear our mind and also to fill it with substances that really nourish us, when we have sovereign relationships with other people and also reclaiming

learn to tap into our own intuition, which I go into in chapter six, sort of this idea of knowing yourself, knowing your own inner voice, that is really when we can tap into our song. And it doesn't have to be complicated. And I think, you know, having read the book, you see, it's not complicated what I'm sharing, but it's just becoming aware, awareness plus courage, which I know you talk about as well, you know, that combination. Yeah.

Emma, thank you so much for being here today. If people wanted to learn more about you, where are the best places they can go? Thank you. I'm on Instagram at the happiness track. And also I have a website called imsov.com where they can get more information about the book and further offerings. Emma Sepulow, thank you so much for being here today. It was such a joy to finally get you on the program because we've been discussing this for a little bit now. And thank you, Elizabeth, for making the introduction.

Thank you, John.

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